Turkey (bird)

A turkey is a large bird. There are wild and domestic varieties.

The naming of turkeys is a little bit confusing because it is one of the rare instances where using a biological name is not enough to clarify the animal of which we are speaking. The species name for the domestic turkey is Meleagris gallopavo, but this is also the biological name of the wild bird from which it was developed, the wild turkey. To further complicate matters, another species, the ocellated turkey, Meleagris ocellata, was also domesticated, but decendants of these birds are no longer used as poultry.

In addition, there are other birds commonly called or nicknamed ‘turkey’ which are not related to meleagris. These include the bush turkey and the brush turkey.

Turkeys have several claims to fame, one is that that they are so ubiquitous in America that Benjamin Franklin proposed them as the US national bird (the turkey lost out for that honour to the Bald Eagle). Domestic turkeys are a staple of the turkey dinner, which is a standard celebratory or feast in the West for such holidays as Christmas and also, in the US, Thanksgiving.